Standing on a Corner

Standing on a Corner

I am literally standing on a corner in Winslow Arizona, and it is such a fine site to see.  There is a girl my Lord, who I happened to be married to and she is not in a flatbed Ford, but is slowin down to take a look at me. Mostly, she is rolling her eyes as I insist on getting a picture with the statue of Glenn Frey of the Eagles. 

And now my too kind and loving wife and I are on another adventure, and we are standing in another line at the train depot in Green River Utah, which may be as lonely as the loneliest road in America.  This line is shorter, in fact we are the only people in the line.  As far as I could see in any direction the train tracks were disappearing into a horizon that goes forever. 

Since I retired, I seemed to be standing in a lot of lines in lots of lonely places.  Standing in lines doesn’t bother me as much as it used to because it gives me time to listen to my song list that seems to be stuck in my brain.  I can’t remember my too kind and loving wife’s name, but I can recite every word in the eight verses of Hotel California.  Hmmm. 

That’s why I call her my too kind and loving wife, because well it gets awkward when I call her by someone else’s name. 

I have driven the loneliest road in America, Highway 50 from Delta UT through Nevada.  The only thing I really ran into, or more accurately ran over, were Mormon crickets…millions of them.  The black paved road was dyed red covered by red bug guts. 

But now, we are going ride the train from Green River to Glenwood Springs to sit in the mineral hot springs, contemplate life, and eat our way across America…again. 

I have read Harry Potter too many times so I keep looking for Platform 9-3/4 at Kings Cross Station because stepping into a world as strange as Hogwarts would be no less strange as standing at a lonely train platform in Green River.  I find a “you are here” sign and go check it out because, well frankly, I would like to know where I am.  I study the sign for a minute, but it doesn’t help me understand where I am and why I feel like I stepped back in time.  

I am reminded of the bumper sticker that says, “All that wander are not lost.”  But at this particular moment, I feel lost.  And I wonder why I wander so much.  My too kind and loving wife thinks my passion for adventure has gone past a healthy hobby and is closer to an obsession and my inability to sit still might be helped with chemicals. 

You can tell when you are getting old because everywhere you go you hear old songs in your head.  I am listening to an old folk song, “The City of New Orleans” that rambles on about a train that, “Rolls along past houses, farms and fields…and graveyards of rusted automobiles.” 

As the real train approaches, we can hear the whistle and feel the rumble.  Soon the conductor is asking for our tickets and showing us to our seats.  The words from the song are like a prophecy as we chug along parallel to I-70 and along the Book Cliffs.  Just past Grand Junction we see how big the Colorado River really is and start to see run down houses and farms and old cars strung along as reminders of better times and abandoned hopes and dreams. 

The train is always an adventure.  This trip is our way of experiencing a mode of travel time forgot and to see another part of the Colorado Plateau.  We get into the rail car and the smell is ripe with sweat, body odor and day-old sushi; it reminds me of a turkey farm in June, a stock yard in July, and a pig farm in August.  When we get settled in our seats, my wife snuggles up and sniffs me.  I resent this, but she just wanted to make sure it wasn’t me that smelled like a pig farm in August.  Either I don’t smell or her love for me is more than a farmer has for his baby piglet. 

We find our seats and there is plenty of room.  The person in front of us did not wake up during the stop and is snoring and drooling without a care in the world.  The man to our side has one sock on and one sock off and laying sideways so as to take up two seats.  He too does not appear to have moved during our boarding the train and for a moment I am not sure if he is dead asleep or just dead.  But I am not even remotely tempted to try and rouse him without rubber gloves. 

Both trips were off the beaten path, but well worth it.  Standing on a corner or at a train depot doesn’t bother me as much as it used to.  I suppose it makes others a little nervous that I am always singing old songs and have a faraway look in my eyes.